Frames
by Squid
Summary: Tsutsui thinks an awful lot. [Kaga/Tsutsui]
1. First

Tsutsui knows exactly what Kaga thinks of him.  
  
He knows he looks like a girl, with his extremely pale skin, and his large myopic eyes, and his skinny androgynous body that makes his uniform look too big and hang all wrong. He's aware that he studies too hard, that he plays things really safe, that people consider him a pushover, and that he hunches.  
  
Tsutsui didn't ask to be like this, it's just who he is.  
  
The first time Kaga met him, it was mid-term, after school. He was getting beaten up. Kaga had kicked them out, grabbing them by their collars and tossing them out like puppies.  
  
Tsutsui remembers thinking that Kaga was another bully come to harass him, because at that time, he couldn't conceive of anyone bothering about him otherwise, least of all a stranger.  
  
Later Kaga had said that it was the Go-ban and the overturned Go ke that had caught his eye. He said he used to play Go. Tsutsui had been so thrilled to find someone to play with until Kaga had clapped the lid back on the Go ke and said that he didn't play anymore.  
  
After that, they had continued to bump into each other and they became friends.  
  
Tsutsui doesn't make many friends, and he knows that Kaga doesn't either, even though he knows many people.  
  
They're too busy being afraid of him. Kaga is too brash; too loud and overly physical. Even though he's brilliant at Shogi, his mere presence overwhelms that and he's cultivated the reputation of a gangster.  
  
Between the two of them, it was never an issue. Tsutsui think it's because he alone knows that Kaga used to play Go. Whoever heard of a gangster who's really good at not just one, but two board strategy games?  
  
Also, being friends with Kaga meant that he wouldn't get bullied again. He knows this has probably occurred to Kaga too, which was why he hung out with Tsutsui.  
  
They became.... closer in second year.  
  
It wasn't anything much other than the way it felt when they met up: It was the hyperawareness of contact, when it occurred, a continual subconscious buzzing of each other's presence, a feeling like the moments needed to last forever and he was about to jump out of his skin for all that eternity.  
  
Once Kaga forgot himself and went a little too far. He kissed him, just a rough smush of lips on his cheek, but it changed things enough for Tsutsui to start avoiding him  
  
Hikaru had patched them up without him ever knowing it. He even made Kaga play Go again, no less.  
  
Tsutsui is still not quite sure exactly how he did it. He does know, however, that he never pushed Kaga away again.  
  
It's a measure of how close they are that he knows he can feel the impatience thrumming with the rhythm of Kaga's heartbeat, when Tsutsui puts a hand on his arm.  
  
Tsutsui doesn't tell Kaga that it is okay for them to go faster, to fuck on Tuesdays after school, Thursdays during break, and Saturdays after supplementary classes, in fact.  
  
He appreciates what Kaga is trying to achieve by keeping himself in check. The sex is, after all, inevitable with someone like Kaga.  
  
All Tsutsui needs to do is keep on knowing him. 


	2. Second

He didn't think that Kaga needed him quite this much; their first time was in the sports supply room, though strictly, it didn't count if Kaga only used his hands, and Tsutsui didn't even take off his pants all the way; just down to his knees.  
  
Kaga had the strangest expression on his face at the time. Later Tsutsui would realise that it was the one he had when he was concentrating very hard.  
  
He remembers the stinging salt smell of dried sweat in there, the smell of Kaga's soap, sharp and Tsutsui doesn't think he can ever forget how his skin tastes like. He can't describe it exactly, but there's heat and it's unyielding and it feels like tasting the sun.  
  
Of course it's not possible. It just feels that way.  
  
Tsutsui didn't know that Kaga would end up liking him so much, and that the knowledge that he does would make him this happy.  
  
It was somewhere during the moment when they had both decided that they were really, truly, finally, going to do it that Tsutsui thinks to himself: I'm happy.  
  
It repeats itself in a closed loop in his head, a dazed realisation that sharpens and narrows down to a single point somewhere deep inside his lower belly.  
  
Kaga was preparing him, and Tsutsui hears him calling his name.  
  
"You okay?" Kaga's voice is gruff and awkward, and Tsutsui has an irrational urge to laugh out loud, he's that happy.  
  
A rough nudge against him makes him gasp, and clutch at the sheets, but he nods, squinting up at Kaga, who looks blurry without spectacles.  
  
And even though Tsutsui can't help himself from trying to squirm away from Kaga while he adjusts to having him lodged somewhere inside, he's convinced that he's experiencing contentment so absolute he's transcended something.  
  
He's just not sure what.  
  
Tsutsui knows he's not going to forget this or mix up the details in his head anytime soon.  
  
His thighs ache from holding himself open, but he doesn't notice, not when he's too busy memorising the way Kaga feels on and inside him, the way Kaga's voice has taken on the texture of gravel, saying his name, and so softly no one would believe it was Kaga speaking, not unless they saw it for themselves.  
  
But it is, and only Tsutsui can see. 


	3. Third

The exams are coming.  
  
Kaga has taken to coming over Tsutsui's house after revision lessons on Saturday, to study together.  
  
Tsutsui supposes that's what Kaga does. To him it just looks like he's flipping randomly through his notes, which are mostly copied from other people. Tsutsui, for example.  
  
And he smokes, which is never a good idea when they are in an enclosed space. Kaga tries his best to foul the air least he can, which Tsutsui appreciates, truly, he does, but-  
  
The cigarettes make Kaga's mouth taste bitter.  
  
They're doing math today, which Kaga has a natural aptitude for, and Tsutsui is only modestly good at, so he's completing the exercises the teacher gave earlier while Kaga looks at him and blows smoke out the window. At points he gets stuck, but Tsutsui doesn't ask him for help and Kaga doesn't offer; just hands him reference books that have worked examples instead.  
  
Kaga pretends he doesn't study, but that isn't true, Tsutsui thinks. Not from the way he seems to know which book would be the most helpful.  
  
"You done yet?" Kaga growls. "I need a break."  
  
Tsutsui refrains from pointing out that he's done nothing but take breaks today.  
  
"I'm at my last question. Let me finish this."  
  
Kaga keeps quiet, and stubs out his cigarette out in his long empty drink can. Tsutsui keys some numbers into his calculator, and cosines it, holding his breath. He lets it out when the answer is the same as the one on the answer key.  
  
"Done?"  
  
"Yes." Tsutsui breathes, dropping his pen. His back aches. Only now does he realise that his room is a mess, with books and notes strewn all over the table, floor and bed.  
  
"I need to clear up my room."  
  
Kaga helps him silently, handing him books, which he arranges on his shelves, and tidying up his notes. There is a moment of panic when he upset a glass of melted ice near his notes, but Tsutsui manages to rescue them just before they smudged into illegibility.  
  
Finally the room looks more or less like it did before they started, and Tsutsui turns to Kaga and says, "we can go take that break now."  
  
Kaga says, "good."  
  
And tumbles them both on his bed. Tsutsui would speak, but he got his breath knocked out of him when they landed.  
  
When he gets it back, his world is blurry and his mouth is full of Kaga's tongue, and he can't speak around that either. Tsutsui thinks he'll never get used to the taste, bitter and a little salty, like being addicted to an exotic type of sliced pickle.  
  
"Kaga-"  
  
His fingers are already familiar with opening the buttons on the school uniform the other way around, Tsutsui observes.  
  
"No. It's been a week already." Kaga says, shrugging his sleeves off. "I'm not used to waiting for that long."  
  
"But do you think it's okay? So close to the examinations." Tsutsui says, not because he wants to stop or anything like that. He just feels like it needed to be said before they got down to it.  
  
"Is this going to affect our grades, Tsutsui?" Kaga's voice is half- exasperated, half-amused. "I'm doing this during our break. We can go back to studying later."  
  
Tsutsui doesn't reply, but he bites down, gently, on Kaga's shoulder. 


	4. Fourth

Their next and last paper is on Monday, which means they have the weekend free.  
  
Tsutsui doesn't protest when Kaga stops him along the corridor and says, "You need a break, Tsutsui."  
  
He lets himself get dragged along to Kaga's house. He's never seen it before, and Tsutsui is curious. It seems Kaga's parents are not at home; haven't been for the past three days and they'll only be coming back middle of next week.  
  
Tsutsui has the strangest feeling Kaga doesn't want his parents to know about him, or at least meet him. Kaga's never invited him over before and Tsutsui thought it was because he didn't want to. Even though he's the weaker one in this relationship, Kaga's a lot more vulnerable. Tsutsui would die before he admitted he thought this.  
  
He has thought about the inevitability of their relationship coming to an end. It seems unavoidable, there are too many reasons why it will never last. They'll probably end up in separate high schools. Their parents might find out and put their foot down. Kaga will get tired of him. It occurs to Tsutsui that Kaga might think of the same things, but he is convinced he can handle it better.  
  
Kaga's just....wilder.  
  
"Tsutsui!"  
  
He starts.  
  
"We're here already."  
  
Kaga's house is large, and cool. He can feel the sweat that stuck his shirt to his back drying already. Kaga has entered the house ahead of him, and Tsutsui hears Kaga ask him what he would like to drink.  
  
Tsutsui asks for water. He's too parched for any sort of flavour or colouring. Kaga takes out two glasses of ice water from the kitchen, and hands one to Tsutsui.  
  
He says, "Take a look around."  
  
Tsutsui nods, and drinks. When he sets his glass down he notices Kaga looking at him.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Your spectacles keep slipping down your nose." And Kaga reaches forward to push it up. He changes his mind halfway, and takes it off instead. Tsutsui keeps still, partially because he's too used to people taking his spectacles away from him.  
  
Kaga doesn't move, and his face is all Tsutsui can see.  
  
"You mind if I call you Kimihiro?"  
  
"N-no, Kaga."  
  
"Tetsuo."  
  
Tsutsui blinks. Kaga keeps looking at him, and it is a bit disconcerting. He turns away and looks at the coffee table, and his empty water glass, wishing there was more.  
  
"You want more water?" Kaga leans back, his tone nonchalant again.  
  
"Yes, please." Tsutsui is still thirsty. He focuses on that. I'm thirsty. I'm thirsty and Kaga just.... Kaga just.....  
  
"Be right back."  
  
Tetsuo. Tsutsui corrects himself, and feels the world tilt a bit. Kaga has left his glasses on the table and he gropes for them, carefully, trying not to knock anything over. He finds them, and puts them on, feeling a bit of his dizziness subside.  
  
Kaga hands him another glass of water, and his hands are cold from the ice.  
  
"You don't have to call me that if you don't want to. Call me an idiot, if you want." Kaga laughs, a short explosion of sound in the absolute afternoon stillness around them.  
  
Tsutsui drinks his water too quickly, and gets an ice headache. He closes his eyes, and feels fingers massaging his scalp, forcefully.  
  
"You study too much, Tsutsui. All that thinking can't be good for you."  
  
Kaga shows him the distraction of mouth and tongue, slick and slippery. Tsutsui keeps thinking only long enough to ask they continue somewhere more private. 


	5. Fifth

Kaga calls him seventeen days into their vacation. Tsutsui doesn't recognise the voice that asks for him, and fails to rescue the book he was reading moments before from crashing onto the floor, and losing his place.  
  
"It's me." Kaga says.  
  
"Tetsuo?" he asks. "Hold on a moment." He picks up the book, and dumps it on the table. While he's doing that his mother comes in and asks who the call's for.  
  
Mine, he replies. Just a friend.  
  
When he finally picks up the reciever again, Kaga is still there, but a bit impatient at being made to wait for so long.  
  
"What were you doing?"  
  
Tsutsui tells him, and appreciates the fact that Kaga doesn't berate him for spending his holidays cooped up at home reading.  
  
"Are you free today?"  
  
"Yes." He says without any hesitation whatsoever. There's no remedial lessons since he's graduated from junior high. "Why?"  
  
"...Nothing."  
  
He wonders why Kaga is asking him that question. They couldn't possibly go out anywhere together.  
  
"Why did you call?"  
  
He can hear Kaga searching for his answer, and props the reciever against his ear with his neck, dumping his stuff on the floor in an attempt to clear some space to sit.  
  
"I'm moving next Wednesday." Kaga's voice comes over the line. "My stuff's mostly packed."  
  
"Oh." He says, and gropes for something to say. "Have a safe trip."  
  
"Damnit 'hiro-"  
  
"What?" He interrupts, sharply. "Do you want me to go over and make a scene?" Tsutsui continues, and regrets it when he hears silence over the line.  
  
"I could help you finish packing." He offers, staring out into nothing in particular. It's a weekday, Thursday and the streets are more or less quiet. "That is, if you want me to."  
  
"My parents are leaving to sign some papers. They won't be back till Sunday." Kaga's voice is subdued, and Tsutsui realises that's the reason why he called. "Can you stay over?"  
  
"I'll have to ask." He says. "But it shouldn't be a problem."  
  
"Wait a minute." Kaga says, and puts down the reciever. When he comes back he sounds a lot less tense. "They've left."  
  
Tsutsui's mother comes into his room, and he takes this opportunity to ask, clapping a hand around the reciever.  
  
"It's okay." He says, after a while. "My mother says I can."  
  
He hears Kaga release a short explosive sigh, and say, "...Good."  
  
"Yes." Tsutsui says. "I'm going to go pack now."  
  
"You know where I live, don't you?" Kaga says. "I'll wait for you outside." 


	6. Sixth

They are awake, and hungry. It is two in the afternoon.  
  
Kaga raids the fridge for something quick while Tsutsui shivers beside him, his hair damp. An apple is tossed his way and he bites into it, shooed to the side while cupboard doors are opened and shut with the efficient, systematic regularity of a hungry teenager.  
  
There is a pause, and some rustling, before Kaga grabs a few random packets and snags a tupperware container out of the fridge. Tsutsui helps pick up the bag of rice crackers that drop out of Kaga's arms, and follows him into the living room where they dump them on the table.  
  
It is arguably one of the stranger meals Tsutsui's ever had, eating rice crackers and stuffed marshmallows and ham and barbecued seaweed all together, salty and peppery and sweet, and when Kaga pulls him close, he reaches forward and tastes salt on his lips and chocolate on his tongue.  
  
After they've finished eating, they have to go raid the fridge again for some water, because they are dying of thirst. Between them they finish off an entire bottle of water, Tsutsui jumping a bit when Kaga brushes the back of his neck with a wet ice-cold hand.   
  
When they're done clearing up, Kaga takes the last of the seaweed along with another bottle of water with them back to their room. 


	7. Seventh

It ends like this:  
  
On the morning of the last day, they throw open the door and all the windows to Kaga's bedroom so as to let as much fresh air in as possible. They drag out the pillows to the backyard to sun, and stuff the sheets into a big canvas bag.  
  
They drop it off at the laundromat before they shop for food to restock Kaga's house, because they've run out of practically everything. At Tsutsui's suggestion, Kaga buys more bread and instant ramen for the rest of the day.  
  
They split up, and Tsutsui stands some distance away with the groceries weighing his arms down while Kaga pretends to be old enough to buy cigarettes and condoms and lubricant. His practice has made perfect, and he succeeds.  
  
They detour to pick up Kaga's sheets before they go home.  
  
When they go home Kaga squirts lubricant down the toilet until it is only about half-full, and replaces it and the condoms in his parents' bedroom, in the bedside drawer. They had considered the problem of the expiry dates being different, but there is nothing they can do about it.  
  
Tsutsui puts the sheets back, washes the dishes accumulating in the kitchen sink, packs his bag and leaves it in the guest room, leaving only what he needs on the table, while Kaga gets three days worth of packing done in two hours and forty three minutes, throwing things haphazardly into boxes.  
  
They watch TV. Halfway through that it starts raining and Kaga has to close the windows of his room while Tsutsui rescues the pillows.  
  
By then it's late, so they eat. After that they go out into the backyard where Kaga smokes like crazy, finishing half of the admittedly small pack, while keeping an eye out for their neighbours.  
  
Tsutsui tries one, but both of them don't like it so he stops. While they sit there, Kaga relentlessly smoking like a chimney, he sifts the grass with his hand for old cigarette butts and lines them up neatly by his side. Some of them are only half smoked, dropped on the grass while Kaga was distracted by other things.  
  
They go back in, and use up what's left of Kaga's parents' lubricant and the condoms in the bathroom, and clean up thoroughly afterwards. Tsutsui gets a rapidly-darkening bruise on his back from the shower faucet, which Kaga rubs after they get out, relentlessly, to help it heal faster.  
  
They throw everything into the trashcan in Kaga's room, along with the cigarette butts that Tsutsui had picked up earlier. Tsutsui empties it now, and ties the junk in three plastic bags. Kaga goes out, and surreptitiously throws them in the trash can of a stranger's home a few houses down, while Tsutsui dumps the rest of the trash in the trash can outside.  
  
That night Tsutsui sleeps in the guest room.  
  
The next morning there is only enough time for them to masturbate quickly in the bathroom before they have to clean up and go downstairs to play on Kaga's as-yet-unpacked Playstation before Kaga's parents come home and he has to go.  
  
When he goes, Kaga walks him to the end of the street, and stops there.  
  
As it is with overnight trips, Tsutsui's bag is always heavier when he leaves.  
  
~~~  
  
This is the end of the series. I hope you have enjoyed reading this.  
  
A little belated, I know, since Tsutsui's birthday was on the 23rd of this month.  
  
There will be another series linked to this one, where they're both a bit older, and I hope you'll enjoy that one too, if you're reading it after I've gotten around to writing it. 


End file.
